Marival Emotions Resort & Suites Riviera Nayarit by Mercure — Hotel in Nayarit

DO NOT RECOMMEND HERE. Do not overpay for this place. Short story from a long review: dirty rooms,nobody seems to know anything.You can find a cheaper place for an all inclusive resort. |We were guest from a friend that is a member,so we should've had a VIP service,I did not know but I figured after a day or so, upon check-in nobody at all explain the benefits we had as members.We came at 10am and our bags were left on the sun until check in time 3:30 pm. The system is so slow, they try to make it personalized but zero efficient. Sit,wait, sign a paper and wait for someone to put the wrist band, that lady asked me if I was married or single,really odd. Then keep asking me about if my husband was coming later (no idea why she kept asking me 3 times for that) what if I am widow, divorce or I have a wife. I was given a map,no explanation of anything. Then the "concierge" not even looking if a room was available for check-in, usually hotels do that but ok, no text when the room will be ready he said we needed to go at the desk 3:30pm.Meanwhile we were at the beach in a part of a members only beach area(i was told by a friend not concierge) I read reservations at the Italian restaurant needed to be done before 3pm at the desk(again was not advised by concierge) I went and made the reservation for that night at concierge, later I stepped at the Italian restaurant and they told me my reservation was for the next day,they didn't even try to accommodate, I was so upset. Then when I called Front Desk they said as I was a member, the concierge will take care of us. But concierge never explained anything of any benefits that are different form any other all inclusive guest. The beds were so hard as rocks, but I figured at night but couldn't sleep. By the way the beds are full not queen so pretty tight for 2 adults. Next morning I called, "your concierge comes at 8 am they will take care of you" , from 10 am to 12pm between explaining to the concierge the mold and dirty pitcher of water and the tongs for the ice, the so very hard bed, the error at the Italian restaurant reservation, the housekeeping coming to say they will put sponges(already had and still hard mattresses) they took the Moldy pitcher never brought it back 2 hours no water, the concierge showed me another room keys didn't work so more waiting,finally he showed me the room, beds were better.I showed him the pitcher also had MOLD, he took pictures and I mentioned the mini fridge was half way stock he (Cesar but goes for Alonso) took pics and said was going to fix that.He had chance to explain me I had the benefits to order rooms service without charge but he didn't. I had to be there with the bellman to move my 3 backpacks, keys didn't work, I was so over all that, 12 pm. Then Later after 4pm I was at the room MOLDY pitcher still there, I called ,transferred to concierge, then Karina the VIP concierge supervisor said she was coming, I showed her the pitcher and explain the issues, I showed her the Pics of the previous rooms and the half way restock fridge, I said I didn't want to get charge for a restock ,until then she said I had that benefit without charge as well ordering room service. She didn't explained anything other benefits or offer after dinner explain with details anything. Every person we encounter had no idea where or how things were or work. I asked if there were showers in case we wanted to stay after the 11 am check out time, I was told no, after check out Pedro a very nice bellman said as members we could stay later and used the full showers just for members. The day of check out I found there is more than 1 restaurant for breakfast and as members there is a la carte not just the buffet one. I figured on my own th club benefits of Carpaccio beach restaurant. Overall I feel I paid a lot for a regular service, a friend is going to all inclusive Nuevo Vallarta for half price including bus ina very nice hotel. Lots of food,lots of alcohol. Excellent Laura (impeccable fast service) and Marcos at capriccio, Rogelio chief of bars, Francisco Italian rest. The server Pm at Pergola Rene, Pedro bellman. Not very nice from Jazmin at the restrooms near lobby, my son has autism and he neess to go with me as there wasn't any family restroom, she mentioned he needed to be in the men, when I said he had autism she was "ach" = to "ugh" in Mèxico. Not thinking to stay there...

We took the red-eye flight and landed early enough so that we got a private taxi to get us to the resort ( about a 20 minute drive). We were told that the check-in was at 8am so we got changed and walked around for an hour. What can I say about the resort.... absolutely beautiful. The beach is amazing, great waves if you like to play in the ocean and the resort is right on the beach. At 8 am we got our wrist band and went straight to the breakfast buffet. There was plenty of different station to choose from but we pretty much went to the omelette station every morning. By 11 am we got our room and went to settle in. We got room 1630 with an impressive view of the courtyard and the ocean. The room was fairly big with a great balcony. My girlfriend and I have checked out so many resorts where people were complaining about needing to go early every morning to reserve a chair on the beach. I can tell you this is not the case for this resort. You will always find a lot of available chairs at any time of the day. The breakfast buffet is open until noon so there's no need to rush in the morning to be there on time. Once that closes, the snack place is open and you can find anything from chicken, fried rice, nacho chips, pizzas ( definitely not the best), hot dogs, burgers fries etc... in the evening you'll have three a la carte options and while they are never full you still need a reservation. When you do reserve, I encourage you to keep the confirmation cause on the first attempt they told us we were not on the list. We went back to the room where we thankfully kept the reservation confirmation and they let us in with it. We tried the Mexican restaurant and loved it so much we went back a second time. The Italian was also extremely good. You also, of course, have the option of going to the buffet for dinner and the food was still very satisfying. Once the buffet closes you can go at the "pizza" restaurant that is open until midnight (I think) and there are more options than just pizza. Besides the excellent food, the staff is so attentive. Everyone says hola and smiles at you. They will serve you any drinks you want. Hugo at the swim up bar remembered our drinks after only 2 days on site. If you ask him for a double shot of your favorite liquor, he remembers it lol. Tino (or Toni) the bell man was extremely helpful in pointing us to the nearest bank ( as the on site ATM was not working). There are daily activities in the pool and on the beach. We were lucky to have a lot of people wanting to play beach volleyball so we got together and played friendly games. Usually there were organised volleyball games everyday at 4pm. There are tennis courts, pickleball courts, ping pong tables, shuffleboards, a foosball table and a mini put (although not in great shape). A pretty cool thing with this resort is you have access to bicycles ( for free) so that you can get out and explore outside of the resort. On Tuesdays, there's a market where you can find pretty much anything you need. It was an 8 minute bike ride and totally worth it. If you ride your bike another 4 minutes you'll get to a mall where there's a supermarket. If you decide to stay on the resort, look out in the ocean once and a while and you'll see whales and dolphins jumping and having fun. Be prepared to say no thanks at least 10 times a day to the vendors that will be offering you massages, cigars and the likes. But they are professionals and quickly walk away. There is a adult only pool if you'd like to stay away from the loud music although the loud music only happened once. The nightly shows are very interesting and well rehearsed. Unfortunately, in my past experience, the Micheal Jackson show is usually THE highlight of the shows but this show, I've got to say, was pretty bad. The performer had the moves, the music was good ( it's Micheal Jackson after all) but buddy could not lip sync to save his life. Not sure if he was having a bad day but he wasn't even close. But really, you shouldn't reject this resort because of a very poor...

Overall, we had a nice vacation but at the price point, we expected better

Rooms: Suite rooms were big, Hot water, good internet

Room repair was not good- clogged drain and toilet upon arrival, curtains stuck on their slides and had to wrestle them closed and curtain hooks were falling off onto the floor (like giant sharp pins to step on!), two windows didn't shut and hung open, shower curtains didn't block the water so flooded floors, Showers sprayed everywhere, handle broken off safe

Rooms were clean-ish. Mopped, swept, clean white linens but scummy corners and baseboards, visible goo spots on upholstery, stains in tubs, toothpaste on bathroom mirror frames, sticky remotes

No curtains on some windows

Beds are ancient with no hygiene liner/mattress covers.

Rooms aren't consistent. Our suite had an old fashioned pull out with the uncomfortable bar and thin mattress, other room had a new style comfy one. Our AC was ok, other roomwas mounted over the doorway and piddled water onto the tile floor (slippery!). Our fans all worked, theirs didn't (batteries in remotes??).

Food: Buffets overall had lots of options- Breakfast was good, Dinner had lots of choices but not always great quality- sushi was spongy (freezer burned?), fried items kept under warming lids were soggy. Mexican theme nights the food was excellent.

Even the beach restaurant requires shoes and dry clothing are required unless you pay $160/pp/day to sit in their specialty beach area. Said area took 50 mins of sitting to get a drink from the server. The second drink never did come. The food was good but certainly not worth $160 a person (hot dog, tacos, nachos, ceviche).

No food can leave the restaurants, so can't get a snack for later or bring something to wet companions

Limited times for room service...when the restaurants are closed, so is room service.

kid options in the dinner buffet are outside of the main restaurant. dine in places didn't have anything 'kid'. Tried ordering modified items, but they came out as listed on the menu

only pizza was available 5-630 and its a cracker with weird toppings like hot dogs and carrots.

Dine in took us 2+hrs, drink service was hit and miss. Orders came incorrect, missing whole dishes

Beach water sport rentals were only open 9-430 and items could only be checked out for 1 hour. No boards in even marginal waves; They claimed it's up to the gov't life guards, but the resorts 100yards up and down the beach had different flags up.

No bungee trampoline, No rock wall. Gone, but still on the activities menu

Kid pool with slide closes at 530pm. Adults not allowed to play/slide with their kids.

Pm activities was just radio by the pool and all activities ended by 445 while dinner didn't open until 630, show at 9/930 and the disco not until 11pm

Kid swing set was rickety

The kids club is heavily advertised and shows online as having some sort of 'passport stamps' for going to activities that could be traded for store credit, but no one ever gave us any info on it; concierge just said 'ask at kids club' which is a teeny little building with a table out front. As soon as the kids saw it, they refused to go in; the passport thing in advance to entice them to attend and leave this momma some alone time would have been nice! We saw the kids club group out and about on the resort a few times; 'aquasplash' is on the schedule 2x daily and seemed to be a bored looking staff member standing at the top of the kiddie pool slide while kids amused themselves.

Beach was soft sand and clean.

.Tiles were coming loose on the bottom of the pool and a child cut her foot

Website says that all gratuities are included with the room rate, but there are tip jars all over.

No lifeguards at any pool or beach. Neighboring resorts had resort employed lifeguards.

Bil got a nail through his foot, Medical services available were bandaids and ointment but there is a hospital about 2km away. They didn't seem to care about nails...